The South American Republics, Part 2 of 2

by Thomas Cleland Dawson

BALSAS ON LAKE TITICACA.

Late in the year 1814 the region north of Lake Titicaca to and beyond Cuzco burst into insurrection under the lead of an Indian cacique and an indefatigable agitator of a priest named Munecas. The Indians rose en masse and the Spanish army in southern Bolivia was cut off from Lima. Twenty thousand insurgents assembled near the north end of Lake Titicaca, but they possessed neither arms, officers, nor organisation. Not one in twenty had a musket, and though their invasion down the Maritime Cordillera to Arequipa was at first successful, a comparatively small force of Spanish regulars chased them back over the passes to the region of the lake and there dispersed them at the battle of Humachiri. Meanwhile the guerilla bands in southern Bolivia and the Argentines in Salta had been more successful. The Spaniards were compelled to retire from the Argentine border back beyond Potosí. The Argentines again invaded the plateau and advanced in force on the road to La Paz and Lima. Once again the Spanish forces which concentrated to meet them were victorious and the allied patriots were completely overthrown in the battle of Viluma, November, 1815, which marks the end of the first period of the war of independence. Thenceforward for seven years the Spanish generals were dominant on the plateau, and the Bolivian patriots made only a desultory and scattered resistance.

With admirable foresight the victorious Spanish general, Pezuela, went to work to subdue thoroughly the whole of Upper Peru. The viceroy, Abascal, backed him up in establishing in this natural fortress a strong military state, whence money and soldiers could be drawn for offensive operations against the insurrection in any part of the continent. The mines supplied the funds of which the viceregal government stood in such desperate need, and the hardy, sturdy Indians of Bolivia afforded a stock of excellent recruits whose fidelity might be enforced by white officers and severe discipline. Pezuela remorselessly pursued the patriot chiefs; Camargo was finally run to earth, captured, and garrotted; Padilla fell in the midst of his little band and was brutally beheaded as he lay wounded on the ground. Garrisons occupied all the towns and important positions, the irregular excesses of the Spanish soldiery were sternly forbidden, a measure of order and security replaced the confusion of the previous years, and the whole resources of the people were carefully husbanded and devoted to the upbuilding of an army. Before the end of 1816 Pezuela had a well-equipped and efficient force of eight thousand men ready for an advance into the Argentine.

The year 1816 was the blackest for the patriot cause since the beginning of the revolution. Chile had been reduced to obedience; the Argentine was convulsed by civil war; Uruguay had fallen into the hands of the Portuguese king; the Spaniards were triumphant in Venezuela, and New Granada, Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia were making no resistance. Pezuela had been promoted to be viceroy at Lima and La Serna in the beginning of 1817 led the Spanish army into the Argentine and advanced far beyond the frontier. But he made his campaign according to the rules of regular European warfare, and though the gauchos of Salta did not venture to give him battle they kept up a harassing series of night attacks, ambushes, and daring forays into his very lines. Mounted on their fleet and hardy plains horses, living on wild cattle, and needing no baggage or provision train, their mobility was phenomenal, and they rendered the advance of the Spanish army through the long stretches of desert and pampa almost impossible.

Meanwhile San Martin's great victory at Chacabuco in Chile completely changed the situation throughout the continent. It was necessary for the viceroy to drain the other provinces of troops to attempt Chile's recovery. Even if La Serna did succeed in pushing toward Buenos Aires, San Martin could recross the Andes and strike him in flank with a victorious army. So the Spanish general withdrew from the northern Argentine and took up the old position near the Bolivian border. The Argentines never attacked him in force, although they kept up a war with incursions over the frontier, and the indomitable Bolivian patriots rose in one local revolt after another during the next four years. The country was never pacified, although the relentless vigilance of the Spanish commanders prevented the insurrection from becoming general.

In 1820 San Martin sailed from Valparaiso and landed his army of Argentines and Chileans on the Peruvian coast near Lima. His masterly dispositions soon compelled the Spaniards to evacuate the capital and thenceforth their power was confined to the Andean region which extends south-east from the Cerro de Pasco to the southern boundary of Bolivia. The patriots had the advantage of being able to land troops at any point on the coast, and the Spanish generals, to meet these invasions, were compelled to move their armies over the tortuous mountain paths. Late in 1822 an expedition attempted to reach the Bolivian plateau by the pass which leads directly up to La Paz. Valdez, the Spanish general, managed to get to the threatened point before the patriots had pushed their way up the mountain. They attacked at a disadvantage, and their army was destroyed.

A year later a similar effort was made by an army of five thousand Peruvians under the command of Santa Cruz, a Bolivian half-breed of noble Inca lineage who had been engaged in the Spanish service until 1821, and then, deserting, had risen to supreme power in the patriot army after the retirement of San Martin. Northern Bolivia had been denuded of troops by the Spanish generals in the course of their operations near Lima. No army disputed the pass, and Santa Cruz penetrated to La Paz without opposition. Valdez hastened from Peru, and the Spanish army in southern Bolivia moved toward the threatened region. Santa Cruz's position lay directly between them; his forces were superior to either of the Spanish armies and apparently it would not be difficult for him to whip them in detail. But he made the mistake of dividing his own forces, and Valdez came up with such unexpected speed that he failed to unite his two divisions before the Spaniards reached La Paz. He retreated to the south in order to join his other division, closely followed by the enemy, and scarcely had he effected the junction when Valdez skilfully outflanked him and united his forces to the army of southern Bolivia. By this manœuvre the patriot army found itself hopelessly outnumbered and fled north in disorder. By the time it reached the coast it had been practically annihilated. One body of Spaniards resumed at its leisure a position threatening Lima, while the Bolivian division occupied itself with crushing the insurgents who had risen at Cochabamba and other points during Santa Cruz's stay upon the plateau.

This disastrous campaign seemed to destroy all hope of Bolivian freedom for years to come. But Olañeta, the renegade Argentine who commanded the Spanish army in Bolivia, quarrelled with La Serna and the northern generals. They sent a force to fight him, and while the Spaniards were thus warring among themselves word was received that Bolivar had arrived on the Peruvian coast, accompanied by his great lieutenant, Sucré, and a large army of Colombian veterans. To meet this pressing danger the viceroy abandoned his efforts to reduce Olañeta to submission, recalled the troops he had sent into Bolivia, and sent north as large a force as he could muster. Bolivar climbed the coast range unopposed and met the Spanish army not far south of Cerro de Pasco. On the 24th of August, 1824, he won the cavalry action of Junin, and the Spaniards were compelled to retire to Cuzco. Bolivar went to Lima to consolidate his political position, leaving the command with Sucré. Four months later the viceroy suddenly broke out of Cuzco, outmanœuvred Sucré, and marched toward Lima closely followed by the Colombian forces. The two armies finally met at Ayacucho, December 9, 1824, and though the royalist army fought on a field of its own choosing and had the advantage in numbers and artillery, it was annihilated.

The only Spanish troops which remained in the field were Olañeta's in southern Bolivia. He struggled desperately to hold his men together and make another stand, but the news of Ayacucho was the signal for an uprising of the patriots all around him. The royalist officers and troops had no heart for a hopeless fight, and as Sucré approached the detached garrisons deserted. In March Olañeta received word that one of his lieutenants, Medina Celi, who was in command at Tumusla near Potosí, had declared for the patriots. The Spanish general promptly marched with the few troops who remained faithful, and, on April 1, 1825, fought the last action of the war of independence. Olañeta was defeated and himself slain, probably by a ball fired by one of his own men.